How good are your meetings?

Have you been in any meetings lately? If you are a typical leader, you spend lots of time in meetings. Some you lead, others you attend. How good are your meetings? Are they meetings that go nowhere, are ineffective, boring, or worst, conflictive and nasty?

There is a better way. When a meeting is effective you are focused on what matters. Everybody is actively engaged, meeting time is used efficiently, and results will lead to effective action.

How can you have better meetings?

Many things influence how good a meeting will be. Here I will focus today mostly on individual skills that a good leader needs in order to have better meetings.

1. Become an expert facilitator. I could train you to develop the skills needed for better facilitation. You will first need to take the time to understand and grow yourself, so you can be better able to understand others. You can then have more positive influence and hold excellent meetings.

2. Learn practical principles and practices of the behavioral sciences. Learning and using psychological principles can enable groups to be more effective and productive in less time.

3. Encourage open dialogue. Knowing the organizational system you are working with, use good techniques to engage others in dialogue, and do exercises that encourage participation.

4. Develop excellent listening skills. Good listening makes for good facilitation. Great facilitation requires not only hearing what people are saying, but being able to listen deeply. By listening deeply I mean you need to listen to the multiple layers of thought, feeling, and identity that are embedded in every message. Then, you also need to reflect back clearly and faithfully the core elements of that message.

5. Develop an authentic leadership presence. You presence--the way you are at any specific moment--is what makes the biggest difference in how you are able to influence, set the mood for meetings, be a calming presence in the midst of controversy, and set an example on how dialogue works. You will need to learn how to use your presence in an authentic way.

6. Let go of your ego. Many leaders let their ego get in the way. Conflict many times results because everybody’s ego plays up and nobody is really listening to anybody else. When this happens, the meeting is a nightmare and nothing is accomplished except bad feelings.

Why you need good meeting facilitation

When you need to make things happen, take important decisions, implement innovation, or get to consensus on important issues, meetings are required. But how many meetings do you end up having to get the results you want and need? Good meeting facilitation can significantly reduce the time investment needed to move forward. It will also ensure more collaboration and buy in.

Many meetings are held, many meetings fail. Few know how to facilitate a process that is dynamic, engaging, and innovative. You need to be able to spend less time in meetings, and more time taking action on good and solid decisions made. Good meetings don't just "happen." You need the understanding, training, and practice of how to facilitate them.

An easier and faster solution would be to engage me as your meeting facilitator. Facilitators like me have spent years honing our skills. We are experts at face to face dialogue and collaboration. We use all of our professional training and years of experience to manage the process of making meetings accomplish the best results.

Remember. . .

If you want to reduce the cost of expensive, non-productive meetings, consider investing in meeting facilitation. Take action today to transform boring and ineffective meetings into creative and action oriented ones. Discuss your situation with me and I may be able to cut your meeting times significantly by accomplish more in less time.

Photo via Flicker by Kevin Dooley